From Maintenance to Mission in little ways

I'm a fan of evangelization, if you couldn't tell. I'm also a fan of the local parish, which is God's ordinary plan for the salvation of the world. This is odd because is evangelization and the parish do not really seem to go together in practice.

My goal as the Adult Faith coordinator is to make Jesus known and loved and followed by every Catholic, and to win over those who aren't Catholic or Christian into the fullness of Christianity.

As time goes on I'll post how you- the parish staffer, volunteer, or awkward zealot- can implement little changes here and there that put the focus of the parish back on mission and off of maintenance.

Some of these might come from me. Most will probably come from smarter people that I find on the Internet and post about.

Here's the first little way you can create a slice of mission in an area commonly quarentined for maintenance-mode only. Check out true evangelist, Colleen Reiss Vermeulen's approach to revising the ordinary parish bulletin:

Now, the bulletin’s not the main effort of any parish (nor should it be), but I propose a principle that’s not time consuming and something all of us have the capacity to do: Order the content of your bulletin, from front to back, along the stages in the process of evangelization that emerge from the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Mission Activity of the Church.

Lead your bulletin, even the front cover, with things that coorespond to basic human needs and desires and then proceed to evangelization opportunities, initial catechesis and ongoing catechesis. Makes you think what that bulletin could become in the hands of an evangelist like Colleen!